Learning from Royal Mail’s experience of absence management during coronavirus
If there’s one business linked to every individual in the UK it is Royal Mail. Our loyal posties are there, delivering our post, day in day out. And they are still there right now during the coronavirus crisis. However, because of our dependence on them, we really notice when something’s a challenge in their business. And that’s happening right now. Staff absence is hitting Royal Mail hard, to the degree they need to “manage these severe absence levels – which are growing” with a “range of mitigations.”
Like many UK businesses, there’s no escaping the fact that absence management is undergoing a radical shift in Royal Mail. They’re putting in place strategies to manage it, including making changes to their sickness policy. Other UK businesses could really learn from them.
Absence management: why percentages matter
Royal Mail has stated: “Absence rates are currently significantly higher than what we normally expect at this time of year.”
The average sickness absence rate of UK workers is usually 2%. At the peak of the UK coronavirus epidemic, the government predicts that employers could experience 20% of their employees off sick at a single point. We are still yet to reach that point, but businesses are already struggling.
Suddenly you can see the really big absence management problem we’ve got brewing. There’s no escaping the fact that absence management has just become really important for all UK businesses.
What is Royal Mail doing?
Royal Mail is an essential service. The steps that they are taking go to show the impact of higher absence on the service a business can provide.
They are taking two notable steps.
Firstly, they have put in place changes to the service they can provide. While continuing to do their best, they are explaining that there will be delays and some services won’t be provided in the same way.
Secondly, they have made some notable changes to their sickness policy, in line with the unprecedented situation they are in. They have extended the terms of their sickness policy with regards to Covid-19 symptoms. They also recognise that this can’t be set in stone, and needs to be reviewed regularly.
What does your business need to do?
As Royal Mail shows, absence management needs your attention right now.
Like Royal Mail, there probably needs to be a review of primary services and functions that need to be prioritised if staff absence is so severe that you cannot continue to offer your usual service.
You also need to spend some time making changes to your sickness policy. You need to make sure that, at a bare minimum, it supports the changes to SSP due to coronavirus and encourages self-isolation to prevent spread of the disease, when necessary.
However, you probably want to go beyond these bare minimum changes to protect your business and keep your employees safe. Your renewed sickness policy needs to relate to homeworkers and onsite workers, as this has likely changed, as well as potentially offering enhanced sickness terms.
Another thing you want to do is take your absence record-keeping to a whole new level. You will need this data for things such as SSP claims, and absence monitoring. However, right now you need that data to be able to work on predicting the impact of absence on business endeavours, in case you need to put in place ‘mitigation’ like Royal Mail. Being able to predict what’s happening with absence over the next few months will help the business to weather this storm.
The importance of absence management
Absence management has always been important to the bottom line of a business. However, at the moment, the impact is enormous. The businesses that manage to continue their core processes and keep employees committed, throughout this time, will be those who take a proactive approach to absence management.
